1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a reading lens for a scanner.
An image reader scans an original and reads an image therefrom by forming a reduced image of the original on a solid-state image pickup device such as CCD (Charge Coupled Device). Such an image reader is used in an image scanner, a facsimile system and a digital copying apparatus, etc.
A reading lens unit for scanner is used in the above mentioned image reader to form a reduced image of the original on the solid-state image pickup device.
2. Description of the Related Art
The reading lens is desirably such that the distance between an object and an image is short and the field angle is wide from the stand point of realizing a small and compact image reader. It is also required that the reading lens aperture be large and the lens be bright so as to heighten the image reading speed. Besides, these days, the pixel size of the solid-state image reader is becoming small, therefore a reading lens of high resolving power is required to makes it possible to heighten the resolution of the image by using the image reader having minute pixels. For example, when a CCD having a pixel size of 7 .mu.m is to be used, the reading lens is required such that the resolution thereof be 71.4 lines/mm on the light receiving surface of the CCD. It is also required that the lens have a high contrast with respect to the above mentioned spatial frequency of the lens (resolution) over the whole area of the light receiving surface of the CCD.
A Topogon lens has a wide field angle and a flat radial image surface.
From the view point of the characteristic of the lens, reading lenses for scanner using the Topogon lens are proposed (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laying Open (KOKAI) Nos. 63-75721 and 64-23215).
On the other hand, however, the Topogon lens is not satisfactory in the aspect of brightness so that it is hard to realize an image scanner of high functional speed. Besides, using the Topogon lens involves a problem that the color quality in the image surface is degraded as the field angle becomes large, which reduces the contrast of the image.